The Lovely Bones

Author:  Alice Sebold
Bought or Borrowed? Borrowed from a Friend
Book Info: Paperback, 328 pages
Published September 1st 2006 by Little Brown and Co. (first published July 3rd 2002)
ISBN 0316166685 (ISBN13: 9780316166683)

"These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections – sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at a great cost, but often magnificent – that happened after I was gone." - Susie Salmon

Main Characters:

• Susie Salmon


• George Harvey


• Lindsey Salmon


• Ray Singh


• Samuel and Hal Heckler


• Len Fenerman

Plot:

Alice Sebold's debut novel revolves around the life and death of Susie Salmon who was mercilessly raped and killed at age fourteen by her psychotic neighbor George Harvey.  After the gruesome event that ended Susie's promising life on Earth, her soul continued to live  or so it seems in heaven. Well, it's not yet the real heaven though, but somewhere "in between" where souls do their stop over's and experience blissful moments in their own idea of heaven.  It's a place where nothing is beyond grasp, except life.

Eventually Franny, her intake counselor in heaven shows her a way to still watch over the now twisted lives of her family and the people she care about the most. This includes Ray Singh, Susie's almost but not quite boyfriend and first kiss back in school. A guy who she still aches to kiss once more.

Susie watches helplessly as her dad breaks into million little pieces each day while trying to pretend survive for her other siblings, Lindsey and Buckey. Both of which, although badly hurting continues to get by each day with the help of new friends Samuel and Hal Heckler.

She achingly endures seeing her mom who's inability to cope up with her child's death decides to plunge into a fleeting affair with Len Fenerman who was then the detective assigned to her daughter's case. With all of these things happening Susie isn't ready to let go, not just yet...

My Review:

The greatest mistake before leafing through the pages of this book was reading the reviews online. Most reviews gave brutal tirades that started on the author's use of absolutely confusing metaphors like:

“The tears came like a small relentless army approaching the front lines of her eyes. She asked for coffee and toast in a restaurant and buttered it with her tears.” and ended on the conclusion of the latter's incapability to even write a book.

Although I do agree that I was quite irked with some play on words that were used, I must say that I was very much affected with the story. This, I think matters more than being very clinical with the technicalities in writing

Reading The Lovely Bones was indeed a very heart-felt experience. I felt my heart pound when Mr. Harvey began talking to Susie in the creepiest manner, when Lindsey broke into the his house and when I thought Samuel and Lindsey won't make it home after graduation. Also, I felt like being on the verge of tears and can just imagine Susie still hearing her mom in the background calling her for dinner and even saying something about Buckley's new drawing posted on the fridge, when the unspeakable was happening to her.

In the book, when Ruth made a connection with Susie it just happened in a snap. Susie had an opportunity to be with her childhood love Ray, not because she planned it, but she was just given "the chance" to be with him again. Not that it was a requirement just so she can move on and crossover to the "real heaven".

I was relieved that the story was not delivered in a way that she'd have to dwell on hunting down Mr. Harvey, because that would have felt quite a burden to read. She was focusing more on the people she loves rather than her violator. People must understand that for a typical fourteen-year-old, life is just that simple, I guess.

The conclusion of the story was not epic at all, but was not bad either like what I have expected based on the reviews. The fact that the Salmon family moved on and started putting the broken pieces together by themselves, without needing the help of Susie's apparition or soulful intervention makes it very realistic. The book made us see how a family will be torn to pieces after a sudden tragedy and how they go through certain stages of denial, rage, and finally, acceptance.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5292373-yan-hernandez">View all my reviews</a>